We're planning on restructuring the way food works here, both to make it a bit realistic and also to pave way for the upcoming foods that will be available in Elysium (over 200 recipes for food!). And since opening of Elysium is not here yet, we're upgrading a portion of the existing food as well. Here's our current plan, but before we get to coding we're open for opinions. Satiation would be from 0% to 100%, info displayed in the [buffs bar. Along with satiation level, current regen rates will be displayed too. Below 50% satiation there will be a gradual decrease in regen rates to zero (50% satiation = 100% regen rates, 25% satiation=50% regen rates, 0% satiation = 0% regen rates). Stamina would be somehow exempt from zero-regen up to some point, since if you are stuck somewhere you still have to be able to move.

Blood alcohol level: after drinking just 1 or 2 »amounts« of it, you would see a debuff displayed but nothing would happen. Above that, if we have time, we'd add strange fun effects would be displayed (such as »you stumble a few tiles«, maybe phantom mobs displayed to you only, or even death at the highest value). Alcohol would be needed for drunk fishing (there's a separate thread for that). We're also getting a brewing system and each beverage will have it's own benefits – but drink in moderation! We don't plan to make thirst a factor like hunger.

Food would decay at about 0.5% per minute (making it 100 before you have to eat again to avoid slower regens, or about 2 hours before there's a noticable effect). Some foods (or even equipment) can then have bonuses such as: Slower digestion, Lesser effects of hunger, Extra food buffer (be able to eat past 100%). You can gain Extra Food Buffer passively as well, 1% more for every 100 total skill points (that means it would go up to about 170%). Newbies would be exempt from this based on their GameTime. (Currently, you lose 5% every 5 minutes, which is equal to 1% per minute).We plan on introducing this when we got the Elysium fishing system coded, but Elysium won't open at that tim, so we'll just make a few new fish available in Trammel & Felucca – and with them a few recipes for minor&medium food buffs.Overall, the Elysium foods will be separated into 4 different categories – lesser, regular, major and legendary. You can only receive one buff from a certain food group. Idea for cooked food, it could give slower digestion. lesser 5%, regular 10, greater 15% - comes to a total of 30% slowing if you have all the 3 foods currently eaten (if you have active buffs from them). Eating a different kind of the same food level would remove that food's current effect and put the new effect (or simply refresh the duration if you eat the same kind of food).

Then we got ideas for mob/boss attacks, such as »hunger attack« where you'd lose satiation for a while, puke attack...There's also an idea that digestion rate (how fast you get hungry) would depend on if you have recently crafted or killed anything. 0.5% per minute if you're idle, but 1% per minute if you have crafted/killed anything in the last few minutes.

Looking forward to some input regarding these specific planned changes, as well as some outside-the-box ideas if anyone wants to pitch in.

+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

Don't know what the purpose of your life is? Well then make something up! (Old Colibrian proverb)

So, if i understood correctly this is something that would be intended as a core gameplay feature, not just a voluntary buff option like potions for example which doesn't debuff you for not jugging em, right?

+Colibri wrote:Below 50% satiation there will be a gradual decrease in regen rates to zero

How much would the debuff effect someone with "maxed" regens aka the relayered folk?

Cooking has been quite useless skill so these will be interesting changes

+Colibri wrote:decrease in regen rates to zero (50% satiation = 100% regen rates, 25% satiation=50% regen rates, 0% satiation = 0% regen rates). Stamina would be somehow exempt from zero-regen up to some point, since if you are stuck somewhere you still have to be able to move.

So, even with maxed gear, if you don't eat, eventually all your regens will go to 0 (except stamina which will reduce to the minimum point that still allows movement, I think it's like 5-10%)

Personally I have never enjoyed playing any games where failure to "Eat or Drink" has a detrimental effect on game play. All the games I have played in past long term have only had food as a voluntary buff. Just one players opinion though.

I just noticed as of right now, each time i eat a fish steak it says i manage to eat the food but im stuffed. The message doesn't change and it lets me eat indefinitely. I don't see anything in the [buffs pop up yet. Am i correct in assuming that this part isn't active yet and this is part of the process? Sometimes i get confuzzled reading about stats and stuff posts like this

The only reason i ask is im very superstitious and have to make sure im completely full before i craft jewelry lol

This seems to be a bit "involved". Slower digestion? Is that going to be so super important in Elysium that the entire shard system needs revamping? Perhaps this should be tested on a quest before a full on roll out. It could be interesting during events- eating too much Halloween candy/ Christmas pies etc causes you to temporarily lose regen stats and crafting ability, or you could get food poisoning from eating poorly cooked or rotten food. Also, is this going to cause the entire relayer market to throw up (puking pastilles anyone, will Balrons now deliver a puking punch), with everyone needing to revamp at least one piece of their gear to max the benefits? Just some initial thoughts.....

Also, I just cant wait to toss my cookies in game (from Golden Temptress of course{I just got those blasted things}). Can we get a cool graphic to go along with it? Perhaps something that lingers for those who had a really full belly before upping chuck during a boss battle. (The grinders cause you to spew your lunch across the other players in your group, thus reducing their vision (hit chance decrease), their fingers slip while trying to use bandies, also a small %chance that they will also "talk to ralph on the big white telephone" and cause more mayhem and confusion.

And you could add the smell factor in as well, lower Defense chance cause you are trying to cover your nose while fighting. Do mongbats smell like sick, or just really bad BO like the headless? OK. I will stop now and go sit in my corner waiting patiently for more cookies to hurl.... urrrk.. hack... gulp... URKL... HUAAAGHHHHHHHH!! Man do I feel better now.

+Nyx wrote:So, even with maxed gear, if you don't eat, eventually all your regens will go to 0 (except stamina which will reduce to the minimum point that still allows movement, I think it's like 5-10%)

I suppose only time will tell but i hope it won't feel like a hindrance...

Slower digestion is just the fancy name we've applied to the function that slows the decay rate on your satiation, so you don't have to eat as often. We don't plan to implement it as an option on the levelable weapon menu, so folks aren't likely going to be redoing their relayers because of this. I imagine it more as something you could apply to your equipment via a deed, and/or on new wearables that would come with this benefit. Additionally, many folks will already be working on redoing their relayers in order to get some of the new, cooler stat items and/or their new appearances. If it were added to the level menu, then I imagine it would be something folks might opt to use when reworking their relayers, but it wouldn't be the reason they are redoing them.

Eating already has some benefits in the game, and we want to expand on that idea. But adding immense benefit to a system means there also has to be some detrimental aspects, or it rapidly becomes unbalanced.

Gaara wrote:I suppose only time will tell but i hope it won't feel like a hindrance...

I doubt it. It's not difficult to make a hotkey to double-click food items every 2-6 hours and I'm sure somebody's going to be passing around some script that does it automatically before long anyway hehe

Also, keep in mind that nearly all (if not all) of the Elysium foods (250-ish recipes) will give buffs. A lot of the time you're likely going to be eating food relatively regularly to get the buff, and every time you ate for the buff, it would add to your satiation. If you're not aiming to keep buffed, then you would generally need to eat a few pieces of food every 2-ish hours (if you have very low skills), or 4-ish hours (for those of you with lots of skills at 100-120). You would need to eat even less often with the added bonus from other aspects (equipment attributes/buff/etc). It's not something where you are going to instantly die if you don't eat some food every 20 minutes.

Alcohol would be needed for drunk fishing (there's a separate thread for that)

please point me to this thread, as i already do this in rl/uo, i never tried bringing my uo alcohol fishing, lol

as for the food revamp, this sounds interesting. i hope i will be able to do something nice with those 50k fish steaks ive been saving.

i think this should expand on the free cookies at the brit ship, maybe have free samples of some said foods to see the buff effects. maybe in that nice lounge area above brit bank or other areas where there are tables and chairs setup like vesper bank, etc,etc..